


Since You've Been Gone

by meverri



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, This is the only fic I'll be writing for this I just gotta get it out of my system
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24540781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meverri/pseuds/meverri
Summary: Five years after the Priest leaves, Fleabag runs into him at a church picnic. It leaves her reflecting on the life she's led.
Relationships: Fleabag/OC, Past Fleabag/Boo, Past Fleabag/Priest
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	Since You've Been Gone

Love stayed hard — stayed _painful_ — for a long time, and then one day, it was easy again.

I know. It’s been a while since we’ve spoken, hmm? Look, this is just a one-off thing, an update, the way I smoked a cigarette at Claire’s wedding last year for old times’ sake and then went right back to being one of those elusive ex-smokers. I just need a moment to pause, tonight, and to think about why I’m here, because I saw the Priest at Harriet’s church picnic and now I just need to get my head on straight.

All right. Let’s start with the simple stuff: Harriet.

It was about a year after Dad’s wedding. Business at the café had been booming, Claire was off with Klare in Finland, living her Scandinavian bliss, and Dad and my horrific stepmother had been on their honeymoon for far longer than seemed appropriate. I was splitting my time between their house and my flat, since they needed someone to watch over her art, and the housesitter they’d actually hired got arrested for — and you won’t believe this — art theft. I wasn’t quite over the Priest, but then, can you ever really fall back out of love? Maybe you can, but I never had. Boo, Harry, and now the Priest each held these little flames in my heart, like a candle burning but never quite dying out, and it wasn’t like I was trying to get back together with Harry or the Priest, but I didn’t think those candles would be snuffed out any time soon.

In case you’re wondering, they’re all still burning. Maybe they always will. There’s one for my mother, too, although it’s obviously not quite the same. Maybe you never really stop loving people once you start.

So, anyway. Café. Success. Business. All those boardroom words. I was in the middle of preparing a fairly mediocre scone for someone when these two women waltzed into the room. The one on the left was tall, with the kind of bright blonde hair that you think can’t possibly be real (and it’s not!) and a very cute smile. It was like the whole world paused when she opened that door, laughing about something with her date, whose face I can’t even remember anymore. She opened the door, and then, as though she had been there a hundred times before, she strode right up to Hilary’s cage and said, “Oh my _God,_ that’s the _cutest_ guinea pig I’ve ever _seen!_ ”

She was loud, like she didn’t care who heard. She walked in like she owned the place. She was so excited to see that damn guinea pig that the entire world melted away for her and the only thing left was Hilary. I guess you could call it love at first sight.

She marched right up to the counter and asked for Hilary’s name, which I gave, and then asked to hold her. I told her the café was too busy at the moment but that if she came back when we closed, I’d let her hold it. Her date stood awkwardly off to the side while she proclaimed her undying love for guinea pigs, and then she asked me my name, and when she repeated it back to me, it was like she was holding a star between her lips.

“Thank you,” she said. “Really, you don’t know how much this means to me.”

“It’s no problem,” I replied. “She’ll be happy to have a new friend. She’s very social, when she’s in a good mood. She’s sort of a terror when she isn’t.”

Harriet laughed. “Aren’t we all?”

She did come back at close that night, and then she told me that she had ditched her date to do it, and then she gave me her number. She told me to call her, like it was as easy as that. Like all I had to do was reach out, and all that joy and shining guinea pig enthusiasm could become a part of my life.

So I did.

We didn’t have sex that first night. I went over to her place and we kissed for almost an hour, just exploring each other. It was nice, warm, comfortable; when we were tired, she invited me to stay over, so I did, and when I woke up beside her the next morning, she was looking at me like she was trying to memorize my face, like she was afraid she’d never see it again.

When I told Boo that I didn’t know where to put all the love I’d had for my mother, and when she offered to take it, I gave it to her. I was so in love with that girl, looking back, and I was barely able to admit it to myself. The couple of times that we fooled around, all under the guise of drinking games and dares and loneliness, it felt like I lived in her heart, like she lived in mine, like we could make a home in each others’ bodies and minds and spirits and just live like that, cozy and happy forever. Then she died, and I didn’t have anywhere to put that love, not really. I gave a little of it to Harry — well, more than I’d like to admit — and did my best to give the rest to a string of random men because none of them looked like Boo, and even thinking about her made my heart hurt.

Harriet looks a bit like Boo. Not really, not when you’ve spent as much time staring besottedly at her face as I have, but a bit. They’ve got the blonde hair in common, obviously, and they’ve both got these tiny little noses that frame their lips in this perfect little triangle. Both their noses scrunch up when they laugh, like their whole face has to react to a joke in order for it to come across. They’ve got the same sort of airy voice.

Harriet’s tall, though, taller than I am, and with dark brown eyes instead of blue, and she wears a lot of flowy dresses that come down past her knees, and she doesn’t pluck her eyebrows so there are these dark hairs that sort of trail down past her browbone and over her nose, and she’s got freckles like you wouldn’t believe. She’s fatter than Boo was, which means her hugs are the most wonderful hugs in the world. She likes to wrap herself around me and squeeze my shoulders until I sort of melt into her chest. I like that; it makes me feel safe, makes me feel protected, makes me feel loved. She kisses me like it’s the easiest thing in the world, with a smile on her face. Boo always looked sad when she kissed me. I think now I know why, but it’s too late to fix it, so I focus on the times when she smiled rather than the times when she cried.

Harriet’s also Catholic. She was surprised by my general knowledge on the subject since I was pretty upfront about being a godless heathen. I told her about the Priest, though I omitted the fact that he’d married my parents; I didn’t want him getting in trouble. She laughed when I told her that story, which was a relief, since I’d thought maybe she’d dump me on the spot.

“Love is a gift from God,” she said. “If it happened, it was what you both needed at the time, even if it seems wrong. He made the right choice, anyway, which makes him stronger than me — I couldn’t have given you up like that.”

“Not even for God?” I asked.

“I won’t answer that out loud,” she said, and then rolled on top of me to kiss me senseless.

After that, we just kept seeing each other. It was a while before we had sex at all; she told me she was trans, and that there were certain considerations to keep in mind, and I told her Boo had been, too, and we sorted it out from there. It was wonderful when it happened, though I’ll spare you the details; just know she was really good at it, and apparently, so was I. You can imagine me tossing my hair all confident, if you like

It’s been — God, what, five years? Wow. It’s been five years since we got together, and not much less since she moved in with me over the café, and we’re getting married in the spring. My proposal was very romantic, apparently, although it was completely unplanned. We were just walking together after sunset, enjoying the cool night air, and I looked over at her and realized I never wanted to do anything else.

“Marry me?” I asked before I could think.

She sort of let out a little half-sound of surprise, and my hand flew up to cover my mouth. “Say that again?”

I shook my head. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to say that. Shit.”

“No, say it again,” said Harriet. “Please, or I’ll think I’m dreaming.”

“Marry me,” I said.

“Oh, Christ, yes,” she said, and then we were kissing in the middle of the sidewalk like it was a romantic comedy, and my foot even popped up all romantically. My foot _popped._ My foot’s never popped before.

So, yeah. We’re getting married. I’ve gotten her this pretty little ring with a big rock — sapphire, since it’s her favorite — and she’s picked out this beautiful flowy dress, and I haven’t picked one out yet because I’m waiting for Claire to come visit so we can go together. And Harriet wants to do a Catholic wedding, which makes sense, so she made me vet the priest from her congregation — and no, it’s not the Priest, thank God — and then she started having me come to church picnics so that I could get to know the community.

_That’s_ where I saw the Priest.

He was standing over by a group of older women and biting into a pastry. His expression was similar to one I’d seen before — well, one I’d _caused_ before — and that did funny things to my chest, so I turned back and said to Harriet, “That’s him.”

“Really?” she said. She stared at him far too openly for my taste. “Okay, yeah, that makes sense. D’you want to leave?”

I thought for a second, then shook my head. “Not unless you want to. It’s been years, and I love you, and I don’t want to make you leave before you’ve had whatever he’s eating, because it looks _delicious._ ”

She led us through a tour of all her greatest church friends, most of whom were also old ladies, which may have been a function of it being a church picnic, and then we had an absolutely incredible lunch that left me perfectly sleepy and full. We stretched out on a picnic blanket under a tree and I fell asleep for a bit, then awoke with my head in her lap and her hands in my hair, and that was fantastic. The day moved, and I didn’t speak with the Priest — at least, not until it was time to leave.

He made his way over sort of sheepishly. I could tell he hadn’t been sure whether or not he wanted to say hi, so I said it first. He smiled, and I introduced him to Harriet.

"You're together?" he asked, his eyes lighting up.

"Engaged," I told him. Harriet held up her hand to show off that sparkling ring of hers. 

"That's exciting," he said. He sort of waggled his eyebrows at me, like he expected me to say something, but all I could do was laugh.

"Before you ask," said Harriet, "we've already got a priest for the wedding."

"Oh, no!" said the Priest. "Oh, I've just gotten a new wedding habit, too. _Very_ modern, sort of sleek, but with a nice bit of ornamentation, too. Not ostentatious, but not boring."

"Shame," I said. "I'd love to see it."

He looked a bit sad at that, but then, it was a sad thing to say. "Well, if you're invited to any weddings at my church, give me a call. I'll wear it special."

"Aw, bless," I said.

“Listen, I have to go. It’s so lovely to meet you,” he said to Harriet. “And so lovely to see you again,” he said to me. “You look happy. Really, really happy.”

I smiled. “You know, I actually am,” I told him.

And that’s the thing. I really was. I really _am._ And even though it hadn’t passed — not really — my love for him had faded into this soft and warm part of my own past, like flickering candlelight on a page in the story of my life, and my love for Harriet burned so bright and fierce and warm that there wasn’t any part of me that wanted to sabotage it, to smother it out, to burn myself on it so badly that Harriet was burned, too.

So when he turned to leave, I just smiled and waved goodbye, and I knew that if I saw him again, I’d do the same. I would have liked to be his friend, again, and maybe someday I will be, but for right now I’m content for him to be a memory and nothing more. Harriet held my hand as we left, and her skin was soft against mine, and it felt right. It felt like my whole life had been curated to lead me to her, to that soft hand in mine, and I could only be grateful for it.

And then, well, here I am, sitting out in one of the café’s chairs and enjoying the night air. Harriet’s upstairs, I think. We had a really wonderful dinner, and tonight we’re going to have really wonderful sex, and I’m going to be in my body for it, not my head. Then we’ll fall asleep beside each other, and in the morning we’ll wake up, and Harriet will have coffee and I’ll have tea, and then I’ll open the café. Harriet will go off to work at the bank, and maybe we’ll go out for lunch, and then she’ll come home. I’ll make dinner tomorrow, since she made it tonight, and then we’ll probably have more sex, and then go to sleep, unless we decide to watch a movie. And the whole cycle will repeat itself, sometimes interrupted by fancy restaurants and church picnics and running into people you never expect to see again once they’ve left your life. Harriet will take Hilary out of her cage every night and hold her, at least for a couple more years (I hope — she’s getting very old, you see, and that scares me), and feed her carrots. I’ll visit Dad every once in a while, and Claire will come home with Klare, and I’ll go visit Harriet’s family, and who knows? Maybe someday Harriet and I will upgrade from a guinea pig to a cat or something. Harriet says that’d be a very lesbian thing for us to do, anyway. I think I’m responsible enough for it, now, and I’m certainly committed enough.

And the world will keep turning, I guess, and life will keep going, and people will move in and out of it. I’m okay with that, I think. I’ll miss them, but that’s all right. That’s part of the experience.

I’m going in now. I’d rather you don’t follow me. You understand. That’s part of the experience, too.


End file.
